User:John Vandenberg/PD-EU

This page is my notes on establishing what publications of the EU bodies are in the public domain, as we do not have a "PD-EU" template. One text on Wikisource that requires a more specific license tag is Treaty on European Union (1992, although it may predate the current EU) published in the Official Journal C 191, 29/07/1992 P. 0109.

Regarding the Official Journal, this says "EU legislation is copyright protected under the legislation of the country of first publication (i.e. Luxembourg). However, legislative material is treated as being in the public domain for end-users." I assume this means that the actual text is public domain, but the journal(compilation of legislation and other material) is copyright.

The journal says (bold in original; italics added):

Free access: access to the site is completely free and not subject to any conditions. It is now even easier to view:


 * the daily issues of the Official Journal of the European Union ,
 * the special editions with the secondary legislation in force on 1 May 2004 (in Czech, Estonian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Hungarian, Maltese, Polish, Slovakian, Slovenian) and 1 January 2007 (Bulgarian, Romanian),
 * the treaties,
 * the case law (Court of Justice, Court of First Instance, Civil Service Tribunal),
 * the texts of legislation in force
 * and the latest proposals and communications of the European Commission

The EU has a website dedicated to transparency in the EU.

European Parliament maintains a database of documents that are in the PD since 3 December 2001.

Council of the EU register since 1 January 1999.